Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Commonly, an image forming apparatus such as a copier, a printer, and a facsimile device includes a sheet feed cassette, which stores sheet-shaped recording mediums such as a paper sheet, and is attachable and removable. The image forming apparatus is constituted such that paper sheets are supplied from the sheet feed cassette and the image forming apparatus forms an image. However, when using a paper sheet with a different size from a paper sheet stored in the sheet feed cassette, in each case, a user needs to store a desired paper sheet in the sheet feed cassette again, thus causing a complicated operation. Thus, there is known an image forming apparatus that includes a manual paper feeder (bypass unit) to which a sheet-shaped recording medium can be supplied without via the sheet feed cassette.
A manual paper feeder that employs one technique includes a bypass tray on which paper sheets are to be placed, a sheet feed roller that sends the most upper paper sheet on the bypass tray, and a press member. The press member includes a paper sheet width guide, which is located on the bypass tray and restricts positional slippage in a width direction orthogonal to a paper feeding direction of a paper sheet, thus pressing a top surface of a paper sheet placed on the bypass tray in an upstream side in a paper feeding direction of the sheet feed roller.
The manual paper feeder includes a press member at an upstream side of a paper feeding direction of a sheet feed roller. This reduces a lift of a paper sheet center portion due to a press of the sheet feed roller, and prevents the skew and lateral slippage of a paper sheet.